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TRADUCCIONES
Memorial de Caballería, n.º 90 - Diciembre 2020
STEALTH
While reconnaissance doctrine includes the capacity for cavalry formations to fight for information,
the best way to perform reconnaissance has long been argued to be by stealth. By remaining
hidden and maximizing the use of cover and concealment to conduct R&S tasks, cavalry formations
can detect and observe enemy developments well forward of the brigade combat team’s (BCT) main
body while also retaining their mobility. Stealthy reconnaissance prevents the cavalry formation
from becoming decisively engaged and greatly enhances its survivability. By only engaging the enemy
when absolutely necessary, cavalry formations can gain and maintain contact with the enemy
from a position of relative advantage before executing a reconnaissance or battle handover as the
relative priority between BCT elements shifts.
Yet despite these advantages, even stealthy reconnaissance requires an ability to survive a
chance contact or an ambush that may occur with little warning. Historical examples such as Operation
Desert Storm provide an excellent study for this. Divisional cavalry organizations at the time
lacked the combat power to conduct their traditional R&S roles. Because tanks were not organic to
the squadrons, many commanders were forced to task-organize tank companies from the maneuver
brigades to provide the division’s primary reconnaissance asset with the resources needed to fight
for information and survive on the battlefield.
The experience in Desert Storm reinforced the lesson of the North Africa campaign during
World War II effective reconnaissance must often include fighting. Commanders in the deserts of
North Africa in 1943 suffered heavy casualties while employing light-reconnaissance formations to
fight for information. With that historical lesson in mind, some commanders in the deserts of Iraq in
1991 simply chose not to use them.
ECONOMY-OF-FORCE
Cavalry formations have long protected and preserved the BCT’s combat power during security
operations, allowing the commander time to decide where to concentrate forces. This time provided
by cavalry formations provides the BCT with a critical capability based on a principle of war:
economy-of-force. Economy-of-force is the principle of employing all available combat power in the
most effective way possible. The flexible capabilities of the cavalry allow commanders to conserve
the combat power of their BCTs to use at a time and place of their choosing. By expending minimum
essential combat power on secondary efforts, commanders can maximize the most combat power on
primary efforts. In other words, by serving in an economy-of-force role, cavalry prevents premature
deployment and attrition of combat power before the BCT reaches its objective.
However, because an economy-of-force, by definition, is to expend the minimum amount of combat
power on secondary efforts, the ability of a cavalry formation to shape the battlefield, influence
key actors and consolidate gains and efforts is severely limited. Although properly task-organized
cavalry formations can produce effects that far outweigh the diversion of combat power from the
main body, dedicating these additional capabilities comes at the risk of fewer capabilities for potential
follow-on operations. As a result, cavalry formations often find themselves limited in what they
can do for the BCT, reacting to the enemy instead of creating the conditions to create and exploit
the initiative.
INTEGRATION OF RCV
The proliferation of the RCV on the battlefield at the lowest level will fundamentally change
these long-standing core beliefs in cavalry doctrine. They will potentially enable commanders to
push past these previous restrictions that have plagued BCTs for centuries while also imposing
restrictions of their own.